Essay Sample on Selective Funding in the Criminal Justice System

Introduction

There are several crime prevention strategies, and each is designed with some level of uniqueness, and they have objectives and requirements for reducing crime (Skogan and Frydl, 2004). As a result, each of these approaches receives funding, even when some have proven not to work ultimately. The criminal justice system and legal departments have continued to put resources in programs that have failed to work simply because of appropriate evaluation making it impossible to determine which ones are successful and which ones are not (Sherman et al. 1997). For this reason, funding efforts should be concentrated on programs that have proven to work and have additional research measure effectiveness of promising strategies. The level of incentive and support by the government through financing and formulation of favorable policies have helped to improve the level of security in our societies; however, the funding seems to be provided in quite a selective manner (Sherman et al., 1997).

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Criminal activities have been part of humanity and almost inevitable thus need to curb the possibility of the vices. The criminal justice has been a significant concern to humanity as everyone needs to work and exist in a free country free from crimes and threats to one's life and property.in this case the management of the criminal justice is vital in any society (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1986).

Many states have put forward various strategies and reforms to facilitate the criminal justice system in the community. In this research paper, we will conduct a study on the policing change that has helped to promote the criminal justice system in our society, we emphasized on two significant reforms which included the following: community policing and training of the police officers to adhere with the laid down strategies to enhancing the criminal justice.

The criminal justice literature has been for decades trying to probe the various reasons why individuals commit crimes daily. To some extent, the criminology study has relatively attempted to explain and prove the multiple causes of criminality in society. This has been greatly attributed to some other disciplines and their contributions such as the psychology to understand the changes in human behavior concerning criminal activities and the economic perspective.

The current criminal justice system is based on the repressive approach to criminality and a policy which relies on the physical and psychological coercion of peoples. The compulsion is described as the urge that happens when people are forced to act or behave in a particular manner by the use of intimidation, threat and even forced to commit a crime or thing that are related to criminal activities. This project tends to discuss and find out on how the criminal justice literature has emphasized on the contribution of the coercion in facilitating criminality,and how the government has come up with several strategies in trying to improve the effectiveness of the criminal justice system by use of selective funding approach.

Aims, Objectives of the Study

The overall objective of the research is to determine the effectiveness of selective fund as one of the strategies to help improve the criminal justice system. Regarding the analysis, the research will then assess whether selective funding has really helped to address the illegal activities or has enabled efficient operations within the criminal justice system. The study will emphasize on the past, present, and the future of the criminal justice system. The research will assess the level of crime in a different area and connecting that with the funding that particular region receives regarding the criminal justice system operations. It will also evaluate an individual's perception of crime and selective financing.

If the funding increases, then the rate of crime is in an area is minimized, and the operations of the law enforcer become effective.

The above hypothesis entails both the independent and dependent variables. The independent variable is the funding that will be controlled throughout the survey, and the dependent variable is the reduction in the criminal acts that are observable and the findings to be measured.

Research Questions

The research questions will tend to emphasize the impact of selective funding within the criminal justice system. The research questions asses the connection between the targeted funding and the level of crime. Primarily this research will address the following issues.

• How does selective funding influence the operations within the criminal justice system?
• What are some other incentives that the government has put forward to address the level of crime rate in our society?
• What are the problems associated with various crimes prevention funding programs?
• How to classify successful and unsuccessful programs?
• What are some of the current practices to model funding efforts?

Feasibility

The topic is based on the criminal justice system and its funding, the field that I specialized in. Hence, I have the necessary background skills and knowledge to conduct the research.

The information needed can also be collected via semi-structured interview approach (May & Finch, 2009). The interviews will involve question designed in forms and presented to the participants to get more information on the topic of study. The meetings will include personal interaction with criminal justice experts for a better understanding of the issue. Through observation method, a specified section of target participants will be examined. The problems that I am likely to encounter in information collection may include finding the right and responsive participants. And gain some of the participants may be hesitant in giving information or not willing at all (Adenwala, 2014).

Literature Review

Review of literature from past studies reveals that funding options were not particular to successful options only (Sherman et al. 1997). Extensive funding has been pointed out as the reason why crime is not going down in specific areas because policymakers have not been made to focus on what works. What is missing from past studies is a list of programs that do not work. Most of the correctional officers seem to experience their unique attitude change mostly in the first five years of the work after the training academy.

The officers in the correctional institutions are, however, obliged to implement their value system and impact the inmates positively since they tend to communicate and interact with the inmate regularly. It is thus essential to actively check on their insight into their various attitudes since the attitude change is considerably associated with inmates and the prison system and can either affect the institution positively or negatively (Skogan & Frydl, 2004). Therefore, the getting to understand whether correctional officers' attitudes change over time from the time of academy entrance through the first five years of service after completion of the six-month academy is essential to the significant correctional system. This research paper seeks to find the answers based on the timing of the attitude change of most of the correctional officer in the various correctional facilities.

Financing in Enhancing the Operations

The police strategy within the criminal justice system needs to be very helpful in order to guarantee the citizens of their safety in the society, and thus the community policing plays a very positive role in the system and detecting the criminality that is likely to be fuelled by the coercion and this can be managed through civil education using the videos brochures and so on. These civic education helps the create awareness to the entire public on their responsibility in the justice system, and that other police offers to avert any criminal acts due to coercion. Again, over 30% of the officers to understand their roles, and 21% of the public also seem to comprehend the justice system. Some strategies are also meant to design the environment as a way to curb crime. According to Cozens et al. (2005), they tend to reflects on the trend in crime intervention theory that points to the importance of developing effective strategies such as environmental design and selective funding to curb crime.

Media Influences on the Criminal Justice System

All over the world people are fascinated by crime and deviance.it is believed that the media can effectively engage the entire public's fascination and the media can increase people's fears about crime, media has dramatically influenced the justice system either directly or indirectly(Dowler,2003). Occasionally, the media acts as the primary public sources of information on crime. These are possible because individuals do interact with this, enhancing significant social alienation. Due to the higher level of interaction there tend to be an increased dependence on media, both the mainstream and social, media for news and updates on the regional and local scope and has also enhanced the reliance on the state or the populist forces to cope with any perceived danger.

The economic tensions are identifying the contemporary treatment of criminal activities and violence by the media and the coverage plays a significant role in reshaping public opinion leading to criminal justice. The overrating of the nature and extent of crime in reporting the challenge of news consumptions and thus, the public is alarmed about the safety of their society. Both the mainstream media and social media serve as the primary source of information and boosts public opinions, for instance, the public pressure can influence specific political decisions and even shapes absolute crime judgment that is viewed to be having public interest. Most of the sensational crime reporting has dramatically been of interest to most of the newspapers and enhance their ratings.

Currently, the community seems to be relatively violent due to the advancement of the media industry, and public anxiety has heightened as a result of the growth and development of computer technologies, film, and television. Moreover, most of the media when covering and reporting about a crime, trials, and prosecution, tend to emphasize more on the personal aspects such as the victims' emotional experiences and the other hand tend to ignore the stated objective statistical data and comments from the experts regarding the issue, however, this strategy tends to emphasize the punitiveness that is associated with the criminal act but gives less attention to the facts that can assist in informing the public opinion.

Methodology

In this project, both quantitative and qualitative methods will be applied. I will involve eight police officers in the interview and four members of the public and two criminology experts. The discussion will be semi-structured to collect the data. Again, and I will use the open-ended questionnaires to get more insights into the criminal justice system concerning coercion. The data gathered that relevant to the topic analyzed and discussed. This scientific research aims to determine how selective funding has impacted the criminal justice system, with the epistemological stance for the study being critical realism. For this research, the use of direct interviews to collect the raw data would be suitable approaches (Lewis, 2015, p.473). The strategy and data collection are ideal since they provide a more extensive range of data based on different individual's perspectives.

Data Collection

Primary data collection approaches will be applied since they are essential in undertaking criminal justice related surveys as they involve the determination of current t...